So long to Stéphane Dion, a Liberal captain who was master of none

National Post, 10 January 2017

Dion was a middle case, the unlikely man swept up in events greater than he, never the master of them, but who served admirably

There is some confusion over the future of Stéphane Dion, dropped from the foreign ministry, or “global affairs” as it is currently styled in the consultant jargon of Her Majesty’s government for Canada.

Perhaps he was offended at the indignity of being offered the ambassadorship to the European Union and Germany, as was reported by CBC News. It’s a conventional end to political careers, a diplomatic sinecure into which can be stuffed inconvenient ministers. One thinks of Alfonso Gagliano being shopped around Europe by Jean Chrétien; the Holy See said no, but Denmark was convinced to take something rotten. But Dion has not a conventional politician.

(It was rather strange that the EU apparently no longer merited a Canadian ambassador of its own, as we maintain with the Organization of American States, and was supposedly to be reduced to the status of the African Union, where our ambassador to Ethiopia does double duty.)